Choose Your Parents Wisely (Joe Grabarz Book 2)

by Tom Trott

  17

  When Ghosts Come Back to Haunt

  ‘what do you think of the name “Petra”,’ she asked as I was leaving.

  ‘I thought you liked your name.’

  ‘I do. But I’ve got a fella, and he doesn’t like it so much. Do you think I should go for it?’

  ‘I think you should do whatever you want to do.’

  ‘If only life was that easy,’ she sighed.

  ‘Isn’t it?’ I asked rhetorically, and left.

  It was obvious what I had to do now, that’s why I went to see Peter again on the off chance, but sadly the rest of her drivers were behaving normally.

  Although they were thorough enough not to use one of hers again, there was still a pattern to follow. It only took me two days of paying, threatening, and flirting, to find him. A different firm, but the same story: used to lease out his car, the type who would let you wipe your arse with his pillow if you paid him enough, and suddenly he had stopped leasing it, suddenly he didn’t need your money thank you very much. He was a Mr Gentjan Hajdari, a half-Albanian, half-Macedonian immigrant who had moved to Britain ten years ago with his family. After Srebrenica he was afraid Eastern Europe was no longer safe for Muslims. He always wore one of those strange German Army parkas, and had a habit of disinfecting the car seats every couple of hours. I even saw him cleaning his air vents with a paintbrush.

  There was nothing to do but follow him through his shift, which was nine to five. Just like Jilani, the regular job was pocket money. Keeping up appearances. It must have been part of the deal, after all, there was a reason they used a taxi driver and not a chauffeur.

  Nothing ever happened during his shift, and after it hadn’t happened I would follow him back to his house in Coldean. Coldean is a suburb squeezed into a valley between Wild and Stanmer Parks, and Ditchling and Lewes Roads, hidden away and only accessible by car from one road. Because it’s cut off it doesn’t attract people or investment in the way other areas do. Some residents optimistically call it Coldean Village. Coldean Shanty Town might be more appropriate.

  He would pull into the driveway of his strangely half-timbered bungalow and I would find a new place to wait on one of the roads above in case tonight was a night he got summoned. In the morning I would head back to the caravan and grab a few hours sleep, then catch up with him again around lunch. He always ate at the same place, an Arab deli with Al Jazeera on the TV. He was one of the few people left in the world who wanted to engage with people, not eat something out of a packet in his car. He always took a full hour for lunch, which I admired. A French hour and a half is even better.

  On the fourth day I took my usual piss-warm shower in the caravan, hitting my head as always on the way out; dressed, jumped on my moped, and zipped off to wait down the street from the deli. He sauntered out, nicely full, as always. Where Jilani had been stress-thin and balding, Hajdari had the build you would expect of a man who spent his days sitting down and his lunches sitting even further down. He always walked out of the deli with a smile on his face, often chuckling to himself as he squeezed into his cab. Then he radioed in for a job and was off.

  That afternoon passed as boringly as the others had, and like the past three days I went slowly out of my mind. I made a game of learning all the street names, that’s how bored I was. By five o’clock it was already dark and I followed him up to the top of Ditchling Road, where he had to queue forever as always, and I would zip past and right and take up an observation post around ten minutes before he got home.

  Over the evening the lights would slowly disappear from the houses, and all feeling would slowly disappear from my fingers. Eventually I would be the only person out on the road. Today I had circled round to a couple of roads above. Looking down from this position I could only just see the rear of his taxi poking out, but it was enough. I waited.

  It was a dark November night, thick shutters of cloud pulled across the sky, blocking out the moon and the starlight, trapping moisture until it clung onto your face. Yellow balls of light hung around street lamps but no light was thrown, and from the fog you expected Jack the Ripper or a Peeler, a headless horseman or a woman with her throat cut, to stumble out and grab you by the lapels. It was a suffocating kind of dark, a supernatural type, when ghosts come back to haunt and others go to join them. The kind of night when people die.

  If tonight was the night Hajdari got summoned, and surely it would be, I was worried about losing him. So I wandered down to his and hid in one of the bushes until all the lights were out. Then I inched forward to the rear of the car, and punched out the red lens on his left light. It fucking hurt. A light came on in the house, but I was back in the bush. Once the light went off, I jogged back to my moped. All I had to do now was wait some more.

  Around half eleven I saw the red glow of a rear light and heard the soft rumble of an idling engine. I gripped the handlebars. Or at least I tried to, my fingers were numb. Then a minute later he reversed out and drove off toward Coldean Lane. I was excited, but I kept my distance, able to follow the mismatched lights in the gloom. Together we headed down to Lewes Road, descending out of the fog. I eased back, headlight off, making sure not to hit his radar. He lead us down toward town, through the Steine, all the way to the pier, and then left along the seafront until we reached Sussex Square. The silhouette of a large older man was standing in the doorway of one of the icing-white Victorian mansions. His white hair and moustache were glowing in the dim light of a sickly yellow bulb, beyond that his face was in darkness. He threw away a cigar when the taxi pulled up and walked jauntily toward it. At least someone was enjoying themselves tonight.

  A moment later we were off again. Back along to the pier, round the Steine, but this time we kept to the left along London Road, taking a right where only buses and taxis, and a cheeky moped, are allowed. Then up Ditchling Road, almost all the way up, through the Fiveways, ascending back into the fog, past the school on the left, right to the outskirts of the city, then he took the last right before the road becomes a bypass, down a single lane that cuts across open grass toward woods. It’s a dead end, so I sailed past the turning, pulling over in a private road that serves a row of houses opposite. There wasn’t a single light on in any of them. The taxi’s twin lights disappeared into the mist.

  Two minutes later it re-emerged, with no passenger, just Hajdari turning right toward the bypass, on his way back to Coldean. Uncharacteristically cautious, I waited. Seven minutes later a second taxi appeared up the road carrying a fare and turned into the lane. I couldn’t see anything more than a silhouette inside. It disappeared, reappeared empty, and left. Four minutes after that, another one did the same.

  This wasn’t just one driver. This probably wasn’t even just three drivers. All I knew was that people were gathering here, somewhere in the mist, for some reason. A collective group using a rotating enigma code of drivers, to keep people like me off the scent. Who was I kidding? It was to keep people like the police off the scent. But like the enigma, once you had one word, you had the system. Jilani had been one car, one driver, but it was enough. I just had no idea who was on the other end of the line.

  I had to get closer, but I couldn’t just walk down the lane as any more taxis would see me instantly, even in this weather.

  I started my moped and headed back down Ditchling Road, past the school on my right, passing another taxi on the way. Then I took a left and zipped the wrong way down Hollingbury Rise, which runs along the bottom of the woods, and left onto Golf Drive, pulling up in the car park at the base of the allotments.

  I left my moped out of the light of the lamp posts and climbed the fence. The mist hung amongst the plots. I passed grimy greenhouses and wilted brown plants, faint outlines of sheds and other indeterminable shapes; the eerie crucified outline of a scarecrow. Heading up the middle of the valley, I rose gently into thicker fog as I headed north, I was waiting to see the car park at the top. Instead an old man’s face hove out of the grey, gaunt and muttering
, with misted glasses. I might have mistaken him for a ghost but he was carrying a black bucket of something. What he was doing in his allotment at midnight I didn’t want to know, that was a job for a proper detective. In five seconds he was lost to the mist again. He was the only person I saw. He might not have been there at all.

  I started to worry that I had lost the path and that I too would be haunting this place forever but the woods slowly encroached on my left and then the ground turned to concrete and I was standing in the car park. There was only one thing at the end of the lane, and only one thing this car park served: Hollingbury Park Golf Course. The club house is the only building: an L-shaped brick eyesore so boring you know it was built by the council.

  As I stood there the grey fog began to glow and headlights appeared from the down the lane, I knelt down and they stopped just before the clubhouse. Another silhouette, this one a well-built man, climbed out of the back. He waited whilst the taxi turned in a circle, headlights sweeping round. I threw myself as flat as I could. When I looked up the lights were trundling back down the lane, and the man had gone.

  I crawled forward until I could hide behind a row of four parked golf buggies, just by the tip of the L. I was looking at the reception, but I couldn’t see any lights. I could only see one of the six sides though. I wanted to observe from the trees or behind a rise, but there was nothing close enough to see through the mist, so keeping low I began to circle round in the open. First the long side facing south, where I could hide behind the ha-ha of the stepped putting green. No lights on. Then I paced to the bottom of the L, but still there was nothing. I had to climb through some trees to check the next side, and still there was nothing, and then I was on the inside of the L and could see the last two sides. There didn’t seem to be a light on anywhere. I was standing in a smaller car park for staff and disabled members. It was empty. The whole damn place was empty, just the unyielding flat black stare of the windows. I was chasing spectres.

  Maybe there was another building, but I didn’t think so.

  I listened. There was nothing but muffled wind. Not a bird, not a car. Not even a breath. The reception doors were just round the corner. I know what you’re thinking. I was thinking it too. I was a brave boy, and stupid, but not that stupid. I was going to do the smart thing. The safe thing.

  I would head back down through the allotments, down to my moped, and the phone box at the bottom of Hollingbury Rise.

  ‘Emergency, which service?’ A woman’s voice.

  ‘Hello.’

  ‘Do you need fire, police, or ambulance?’

  ‘Police.’

  Buzz, click. ‘Police emergency.’ A new voice.

  ‘Yes, hello, I was just walking my dog and—’

  ‘Calm down please, sir.’

  ‘Sorry. It’s just—I was walking my dog and… and I heard screaming. A woman screaming. Coming from the golf club.’

  ‘Which golf club, sir?’

  ‘A nine iron. Sorry, I mean, Hollingbury Park.’

  ‘Hollingbury Park. Ok, sir, happy to help, the boys’ll be right there. Fully armed and ready for business.’

  ‘Oh thank you! Thank you so much!’

  ‘Anything else we can do for you in the meantime?’

  Sirens. Armed men. Storm in, drag ‘em out. Key to the city? Yes, thank you very much. Million pound reward? Don’t mind if I do—

  Gravel crunched to my left. Footsteps? I ran to my right. It was instinct. I ran past the entrance, round to the putting greens, and straight into a fist!

  Everything went bright, then dark, then red, green, purple, and painful. My optic nerve was firing every colour into my brain, all at the same time. My clothes were being tugged. I tried to keep them on. Then gravity disappeared, and I was floating, my shoes just brushing along the ground. The colours faded. Fuzzy shapes replaced them. Then I could focus. Ceiling wheeled in front me: I was inside.

  18

  Beneath the Surface

  i killed the ignition. The engine burbled and died. Nothing greeted it in return. Not even a gust of air. There was no sound from the garden this time. No movement from the house. No traffic. No police cars. No one to be seen. No one to be seen by. Even the little old lady in the flats had gone, there was just the drape of her curtains.

  I kicked down the stand and climbed off. Everything about me hurt. I felt like I had rusted. I pulled off my helmet and took the torch and toolkit from the saddlebags. I didn’t know if I would need them, but I felt better when properly equipped.

  I wandered down the alley the same way I had two hours earlier. Only this time I wasn’t greeted by a throng of pretty, rich people. There was no one, and no sound to go with them. The serving plates had all been cleared away, but the tables were still up. I stepped over dirty paper plates and empty plastic wine glasses. Half-finished ones rested on the side, undisturbed by me or anyone else. The “FIND JOY” boards were still up on their easels, as was the bunting. The place had been abandoned quickly; dropped like cold chips.

  I jogged up the patio stairs to the back door. It was one of those ugly modern fibreglass ones, which meant there was no hope of avoiding the lock. I knelt down, unrolled my toolkit, and went to work. It didn’t take long, I’m too much of a pro.

  This let me into an airlock-like wet room where you could hose down the dog before you let him in to mess up your white kitchen. There was a deep sink with a shower head on the taps, and several heavy coats hung up. There was a washing machine and tumble dryer stacked on top of each other, and the usual assortment of detergents and softeners. It was a modern extension, and they had kept the original back door, which they locked for added security, so I spent another minute picking this one.

  Then I was into the kitchen, pocketing my tools but gripping the heavy torch in case there was someone to hit with it. The kitchen was mostly plain, sanded light wood, some of it painted a pastel, sort of peppermint, green. Anything else that was painted, a table leg for example, was white. There were glass Kilner jars that said sugar on them, or flour, or self-raising flour, or salt, pepper, paprika, and more, all with their contents decanted into them so that you wouldn’t be offended by seeing a brand label and could pretend you were living in the nineteenth century. There was a Smeg fridge, none of your vulgar American-style shit here, Mason Cash bowls for baking, and Le Creuset for cooking. Only the best. I wanted to look in their fridge and see if it was packed full of vegetables the way they are on television; and chilli jam, and onion chutney, and other things that humans don’t eat. On the table were the now empty serving plates, as well as the unopened extra boxes of wine and cartons of orange juice.

  I moved through to the living room and gave it a cursory glance. Mugs were placed on almost every surface, they must have spent more on drinks coasters than I did on rent. The furniture was expensive and not at all child-friendly. The floor was the same sanded light wood boards as the kitchen and hallway, but with a large Persian rug covering everything except the last foot before the walls. There was an open fireplace, but being summer it was stacked with ornamental pinecones, some of them painted with a subtle silver glitter. There were a lot of candles that had never been burnt. There was no television in the room, it was no doubt banished to a hidden chamber like a demented stepchild. And as a result there was a lot of free real estate on the walls, taken up by art. It was the sort of nice looking but not masterful stuff you might buy in an open house. There was also a prominent show off-shelf with trophies and a couple of medals, won by Joy, no doubt.

  The only time I took I used to study the photographs. You can always learn a lot from what photos people choose to display. When you display what seems like every photo ever taken you are telling people that you don’t think your real life lives up to the curated version, and nothing more specific than that. But the Tothovas had chosen only three, and it’s when picking just a few that you have to ask yourself: what people, places, moments define us?

  There was one of a young blonde teenager rec
lining on a beach, with a stunning dark-haired beauty in her forties reclining behind, and a pompous man in at least his fifties crouched next to them. They were somewhere in the Middle East judging by the characters in the background. The girl wore nothing but a modest swimming costume, her eyes squinting; the mother in a similarly modest but far more chic costume with Chanel sunglasses and a wide-brimmed summer hat. The father on the other hand was in a grey suit, yellow shirt, orange tie, and matching red face. The Redburn family, almost. I had to guess who was holding the camera.

  Next to it was a photo of a young boy in a dark blue puffer jacket, almost up to the top of his wellies in snow, on a forecourt. Standing behind him were too larger boys in slightly more stylish cold weather gear and a girl. The boys were laughing to each other, the girl was staring off to the side; the young boy was the only one looking at the camera. The subjects: Mike, Steve, Tasha, and Graham Tothova. The setting: Derby, circa 1980s. Taking the photo: Paul or Lynn Tothova.

  The last one was the new Tothova family: Graham in one of his boring shirts, Maria looking as beautiful and otherworldly as ever; and Joy, nothing but a bundle of clothes in Maria’s arms, a knitted yellow hat hiding everything but a pair of screwed up eyes and a button nose. A low winter sunlight shone on the two of them, Graham was in shadow.

  I padded back into the hallway, and into the room at the front. Here was the television, and the less fashionable furniture. All of the girl’s toys, crayons, a painting set, and a dress up box. Graham’s toys were here too: a state-of-the-art stereo system and racks of CDs. There were Blu-rays too, split into two distinct shelves; one was eighties action movies and the other was all world cinema. Nothing interesting in here.